The following patents are believed to show the state of the prior art:
______________________________________ 893,173 H. A. Kunze July 14, 1908 2,560,723 L. J. Hansen July 17, 1951 2,968,112 R. E. McClure January 17, 1961 2,593,716 R. E. Allen November 7, 1950 3,802,110 Jean-Claude Guillemain April 19, 1974 4,908,974 Jonathan B. Orlick March 20, 1990 4,986,022 James D. Wilkinson January 22, 1991 ______________________________________
In this field the earlier ways proposed have had many disadvantages. A first and important need is for the line cutter to be itself substantially unsnaggable. Where snags catch lures there are usually snags to catch a line cutter. Tree branches, seaweed and underwater logs and debris are common.
The loss of a snagged lure is often inevitable, but the loss of a line is preventable. Yet it is preventable only when the line cutter doesn't itself become snagged and trapped by debris and become unretrievable.
Samples of devices that would seem to snag are found in the patents to the Kunze, Hansen, the McClure, Guillemain, and to some degree Allen and Orlick.
A second and important prior art problem has been an outer shape for such a line cutter as to cause the line cutter to flutter on its way down a fishing line, this causes a binding against the line, hindering passage down the fishline.
An example of such a disadvantageous line-binding shape can be found in the U.S. Pat. No. 2,968,112, issued to Robert E. McClure. Some patents have no line with which to retrieve the cutter, examples are patents to McClure, Guillemain, Orlick and Wilkinson.
Examples of expensive ways are found in the patents to McClure, Guillemain, and Orlick. Some of the prior art devices are not line cutters. Examples are in the Hansen and Wilkinson patents.
The Wilkinson device shows a very streamlined, snag free shape. But in Wilkinson's there is no line-cutting; it is a hook-ram. It would be unretrievable itself, just as the line would be unretrievable by means of it, if it did not happen to ram the hook hard enough to loosen it. It would seem to be on a principle only for hooks and not for plugs.